Jareth Begins
by starvingartist83
Summary: How a goblin king is made.
1. Chapter 1

The little blond boy lay sullen in his bed while his Mummy shouted at him. Again.

"Will you just lay down and go to sleep? I don't want to hear anymore from you or your brother! Stop causing trouble! He's trying to sleep!" She pulled up his rumpled dinosaur blanket he'd kicked off.

Caleb wasn't trying to sleep. Jareth could tell he was pretending to sleep. He usually did when Mummy came in to see what all the noise was about.

"Caleb was kicking me." Jareth muttered.

"How was he kicking you? You're in the top bunk!" Jareth tried to explain, but he was only three. The words just didn't come out right.

"Stop shouting at me. I don't like it." He grumbled. He didn't know why he always felt he had to argue back, but he did every time without fail.

"It's nearly midnight. Shut your eyes and go to sleep. Here's your teddy bear." Mummy put his ragged green toy in his bed. Jareth snatched and hugged it tightly.

"It's not a bear it's a goblin."

Mummy sighed.

"Just go to sleep. Goodnight Caleb." She bent down and kissed Caleb on the head, made sure his Tiger was under his arm, straightened his blankets and then turned with one last glare aimed at Jareth before leaving.

Jareth rolled over on his side and hugged his Green Goblin, adding a few more teardrops to the stains already on it. Caleb always teased him about it. Caleb had a beautiful white tiger toy to sleep with but Jareth had fallen in love with his ugly Green Goblin when he was a tiny baby and would never give it up.

"Goblins are scary monsters." Caleb would say. He was five. He knew everything. "One day that thing's gonna wake up and take you away."

"I wish the goblins would take me away." Jareth whispered. "Right now."

He squeezed his eyes shut and hugged Green Goblin tighter as he thought he heard the sound of thunder.


	2. Chapter 2

Jareth wasn't sure how he got there, or where 'there' was. It looked like a courtyard of a castle in one of the stories Mummy would sometimes read him, about knights and fairies. Except these weren't fairies standing around him.

The creatures were green and brown. They were ugly. They weren't much bigger than he was. And they were scared, running here, there and everywhere around the cavernous room made of stone pointing at him and gibbering away so fast he couldn't hear what they were saying. Then there were some bigger ones, almost the size of Caleb, with swords and big hammers, and they were coming towards him.

Jareth stood still in the middle of the room, surprised but unafraid. He looked around him, trying to see which of these goblins were in charge and who he could talk to, but none would meet his gaze. Then he was surrounded by a ring of ... three, four, five...seven, no six ... a lot of creatures pointing pointy weapons at him. The others were all standing far away from him, but still watching what was going on.

"Who are you?" Jareth demanded loudly of no one in particular. They all stopped and were silent, even the big, nasty looking ones with the weapons. There was no reply. "Well? Who are you? I'm Jareth." The goblins in the ring started whispering and nudging each other, arguing over who had to answer him. "I'm getting impatient!" Jareth shouted, in his best imitation of his mother. One finally stepped forward.

"I'm Burble." He answered. Jareth waited for more of an explanation. He didn't get one.

"Burble? Burble who?"

"Burble, me, sir. Erm, who are you?" he ventured. Jareth fixed his icy stare on Burble.

"I said I'm Jareth. You're a goblin aren't you?"

"Erm, yes. We all are in this city. Goblin city."

Jareth stood and thought about this. He realised his Green Goblin wasn't with him. His lower lip quivered for a moment, and then he looked around him. There were goblins everywhere.

"I like goblins." He announced. He wiped his nose on the back of his pyjama sleeve. There was a murmur from the goblins in the room. The ones were had tried to run away from his sudden appearance were coming back. Some tiny ones, goblin-children, ran over to have a look at him and were smiling ugly smiles. The ones with weapons stood back and held them awkwardly. "Who's the boss here?" The goblins all looked around at each other.

"Boss?" Burble repeated.

"Boss. Who tells everyone what to do? Like the dad. Or the president. Or the king?"

"My mummy tells me what to do!" A little goblin girl said.

"Yeah me too." Jareth said. "Who's the goblin king?" he asked. The goblins all looked at each other, shrugging and shaking their heads. "There has to be a king. Who's in charge? Who can help me?"

"No one's in charge. Mums raise the babies. Dads protect the city. The little ones play. What do you need help with? Maybe we can help you." One of the other goblins, a lady goblin who was standing at the front of the crowd, said.

_I want to go home, of course!_ Jareth almost said. He looked around. The young ones looked like fun to play with, much more fun than his brother Caleb. The mummies were smiling now they weren't afraid of him, not like his mummy.

"I'm cold." He said instead. And he was. His teeth had started chattering, standing there in a stone room wearing only his pyjamas. There was some shuffling around towards the back of the newly-gathered crowd and another goblin mummy brought him a shawl she had been wearing. An old, worn, brightly-coloured soft and warm blanket for him. She wrapped it around his shoulders.

"There you go!" she said and stepped back. He hugged his new blankie. It was almost as good as hugging Green Goblin. "Anything else, dearie?"

The goblins might have had the magic to send him home. He never bothered to ask.

"I want to stay with you. Can I? You need a king. I'll be your king, when I'm a bit bigger. When I'm a big boy. When I'm five." Jareth didn't understand words like 'arrogant', 'presumptuous' or 'obnoxious'. Fortunately neither did the goblins.

"Of course dearie. We'll take care of you. You come over to our house, I'll get you some nice hot soup and you can share the room with the other kiddies." Jareth's new Goblin Mummy said, accompanied by offers of food, beds and playing with other goblin kiddies from all the other mummies present. Jareth smiled, and didn't give his old life a second thought for a long, long time.


End file.
